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Having just secured his spot in next month's Olympic trials, John Morris was ready to celebrate in true Canadian curling style.

"I'm in my hometown where I have a lot of fond memories from university and I think I'm going to go on a Little Laurier pub crawl," he said after a 5-4 win over Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie on Saturday afternoon at the Road to the Road pre-trials at the Memorial Auditorium. "All I'm thinking about is how good that cold beer's going to taste. I'll start thinking about Winnipeg around noon tomorrow."

Morris and his Kelowna, B.C., rink of Jim Cotter (who throws fourth stones), Tyrel Griffith and Rick Sawatsky came through the 12-rink, triple-knockout event undefeated, beating Jacobs in a game that saw as many misses as great shots. Cotter drew the four-foot for the winning point.

"It was ugly, but we'll take it," he said. "I'm really proud of the guys. We hung tough and just grinded. All we wanted was to be tied coming home and give Jim a chance to make his last shot. He's our staple. He had a tough start to that game, but he really bounced back."

Morris split from long-time skip Kevin Martin of Edmonton after last season. They won the Olympic gold medal in Vancouver in 2010 and will face each other next month in Winnipeg, where the field also includes the likes of Glenn Howard, Kevin Koe, Jeff Stoughton and Mike McEwen.

"Oh, is he in that bonspiel?" Morris joked about facing Martin. "I know we're both going to be gunning for each other, but every game there will be a grind. There's no pressure like that at an Olympic trials -- maybe even more than the Olympics themselves."

As for his new team, he said: "This is the best we've curled all year. The other guys haven't had much experience in big-game finals like this, so it's great for experience because they can really draw on this in the future."

Jacobs, the defending Brier champ, gets a second chance as he'll face either Brad Gushue of St. John's or Steve Laycock of Saskatoon for the second berth Sunday night. He was succinct in his appraisal of the game, especially his team's play.

"Quite frankly, that was terrible curling. I don't think either team played that well and no one went for the jugular," he said. "If we're going to curl like that, we're not getting out of this. We need to bounce back. We'll hang out tonight, have a meal and hopefully get some sleep, although I don't know how much.

"Actually, losing that game is typical of our team. We've lost the 1-2 game at the provincials a number of times, but we've always bounced back and I'm sure we will tomorrow."

Gushue and Laycock advanced to Sunday morning's playoff game having emerged from the C side. Gushue dispatched Greg Balsdon, curling out of the Loonie CC in Elgin, Ont., 10-4 while Laycock had a tougher game, shading Rob Fowler of Brandon, Man., 5-4.

Gushue had dropped to the C side after losing two straight, to Morris and Jacobs, and the 2006 Olympic gold medallist was down to his last life.

"We were pretty disappointed after losing those games to drop out of this game," he said, gesturing toward the Morris-Jacobs tilt. "Instead of having two lives and being two games out (from the trials), now we're four games out. We just got outplayed in those two games; we'd miss a shot earlyand end up chasing the end. We knew we had to step it up today and we did."

Saturday night's game saw Kelly Scott of Kelowna and Renee Sonnenberg of Grande Prairie, Alta., meet in the A-B game, with the winner heading to Winnipeg and the loser facing Val Sweeting of Edmonton in the other qualifying game Sunday afternoon.

Earlier Saturday, Sweeting stole two in the 10th to eliminate 2010 Olympic silver medallist Cheryl Bernard of Calgary 9-7 in the day's first playoff game.

Bernard had taken a 7-5 lead in the meeting of the two C-side qualifiers with a steal of two in the eighth, but Sweeting came back with a deuce of her own in the ninth. Bernard had a chance at an angle raise against two for the win in the 10th but it didn't quite come off and her shooter rolled too far, putting Sweeting and her rink of Dana Ferguson, Joanne Courtney and Rachelle Pidherny a win away from Winnipeg.

"I felt like a cat out there with nine lives," Sweeting said. "We had a couple of chances, but they had some chances to put the game away. The steal was unfortunate, but we knew we could battle back. Get our deuce back and keep it close, and that's what we did."

John Morris books Canadian Olympic curling trials berth

Having just secured his spot in next month's Olympic trials, John Morris was ready to celebrate in true Canadian curling style.

"I'm in my hometown where I have a lot of fond memories from university and I think I'm going to go on a Little Laurier pub crawl," he said after a 5-4 win over Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie on Saturday afternoon at the Road to the Road pre-trials at the Memorial Auditorium. "All I'm thinking about is how good that cold beer's going to taste. I'll start thinking about Winnipeg around noon tomorrow."

Morris and his Kelowna, B.C., rink of Jim Cotter (who throws fourth stones), Tyrel Griffith and Rick Sawatsky came through the 12-rink, triple-knockout event undefeated, beating Jacobs in a game that saw as many misses as great shots. Cotter drew the four-foot for the winning point.